Under the Bed
by Deanie McQueen
Summary: In which the boys find themselves unnaturally fearful of childish things, like monsters under the bed and inside closets. Set in S1. Limp!Sam, Limp!Dean, Protective!Daddy John.
1. Peanuts

**A/N:** I guess this would probably take place shortly after _Dead Man's Blood_, if you need a timeline. Whatever interval we need for the boys to be with their father.

* * *

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter One - Peanuts_

* * *

They probably should have moved on.

He's getting old, though, the caffeine's just fucking with him, and staying up for 36 hours straight just isn't in the books anymore. So he called his boys up as soon as he saw a sign, told them he was turning off and that they should, too. He heard Sam's huffy indignation in the background as Dean took the call, but it was accepted that this was what they were doing without much argument, thank fuck.

What he hadn't bargained on was the peanut festival in town, or how it was the largest peanut festival held in the entire country, and it was this week and this week only until next fall.

One room. At least it had two doubles. John didn't care at all.

"We'll take it," he said, and the front desk guy swiped his fraudulent credit card and handed over the room key without question.

"So, you're sharing with Dean, right?" Sam asked, trailing behind him, wearing that same look he's been wearing around John since he'd hit 13. Nine years apparently doesn't make a difference at all. "'Cause I'm not sharing with Dean."

"No," Dean said. "I'm not sharing with Dad. Dad is sharing with _you_, Bitchy McBitcherson."

And, of course, John said, "Dad's not sharing with anyone." Because he's the dad, and as such, he calls the shots.

And now he knows that was a mistake.

Bodies fall from the bed in five minute intervals, big fucking bodies, six foot plus bodies, and they make large thuds when they hit the ground. And since they aren't _dead_ bodies (the kind of bodies John is really used to these days) these thuds come accompanied with an "_ow_" or a "fuck me" or a "_Stop_ it, Dean." This last one is always followed by a sulky, _"You _stop it" and then they stop only for the cycle to begin again five minutes later.

It's when Dean finally snarls, "You little sonuva_bitch_" and launches himself back on the bed - undoubtedly to perform some (somewhat understandable) act of violence upon his little brother - that John finally gets up to intervene, turning on the bedside lamp and pulling his 27-year-old off his 22-year-old.

He blinks his tired eyes and thinks about not getting mad, because it'll only escalate with Sam, and Dean'll get that sad look about him and John doesn't have the energy or the heart for any of it right now. Eventually he just settles for tugging on their limbs and their clothes until they grudgingly come to sit on the edge of the bed to face him at which he point, he says, "No fucking more. And Dean, you think about what you're saying when you curse. If I hear you call your brother that again, we'll be having words."

"Aren't we having words right now?"

They are having words, John realizes, and he scrubs an irritated hand over his irritated face. "We'll be having _more_ words."

Dean snorts in amusement, but his eyes are aimed upwards. He's thinking it over, like he always does when John berates him about something, and when he reaches that point where he gets it, his jaw drops and his eyes cloud over and he mumbles an apology.

John can't verbally accept an apology. He can't bring himself to say any words of comfort to ease his son's guilt, but he can clap the boy on the shoulder. Which he does.

The tips of his fingers find the back of his son's black T-shirt, and the fabric is damp and kind of sticky. He pulls away and sees the smallest hint of red staining his skin.

Blood.

John needs to learn patience. John needs to learn to talk. But you can't teach an old dog new tricks and he reaches down and pulls the hem of Dean's T-shirt up from the back until there's bare skin up to just above the kid's shoulder blade, bare skin that's unmarred until he gets to the bleeding wound.

"Dude, _Dad..." _Dean's protesting and he's flailing, trying to regain control and pull his shirt back down and Sam's got his mouth open and ready to defend his brother from whatever this is. But then _he_ sees the wound.

"Dean, you're bleeding," Sam says.

Dean stills. "I am?"

"You are," John confirms, and he has no idea what made that kind of wound, and he knows for a fact that Dean wasn't injured earlier. He lets go of his son's shirt. Dean pulls it back down, looking flustered and upset at being manhandled in such a way, even moreso when John asks, "Do you need help cleaning it up?"

"I can clean my own goddamn cut, Dad."

"Excuse me?"

But Dean's usual flippant cheer has apparently left him for the evening. "I meant, no fucking _sir_."

"Watch your fucking tone," is all John can muster up as the boy stalks off to the bathroom. He waits for the slam, but Dean's no Sam. Dean's no teenager, Dean's never been a teenager, and the door shuts firmly with a click.

John gets on his knees on the grungy carpet, feels around, looks under the bed.

"Dad?" Sam asks. "What're you doing _this_ time?"

The way in which his son says "this time" indicates that John is an eccentric old man who does things without any reason whatsoever.

"I'm making sure there's nothing down here that cut him."

"Nothing cut him. His shirt wasn't torn. He probably landed on the end table when I pushed him or something." Sam's voice holds the tiniest hint of guilt and John looks up to see him shrugging. "Probably had something there before that got opened up."

Probably. John will let it go. He'll re-salt the doors and windows and let it go. As long as his kids shut the fuck up and go to sleep so he can get some sleep himself, he'll let it all go.

Sam's looking pale, though, and that's something else to worry about it.

"Get some sleep, Sammy," John tells him. "I don't want to hear any more of this shit tonight, clear?"

Sam blinks. "Yessir." And as obediently as the kid's ever been able to manage, he climbs back into bed and turns on his side, leaving as much room as he can for his brother.

John knocks on the bathroom door after it's been five minutes too long.

"Dean?" He's met with silence. He persists. John Winchester always persists. "_Dean_? Answer me or I'm knocking the goddamn door down."

"Can't a guy take a leak?"

"I don't hear any leaking, kid. If you're done with your cut, come out here and get in bed."

Again, silence. Silence is like a stick, and John's like a bear, and he really doesn't have the fucking patience to be poked at the moment. He bangs a heavy fist against the door. The mattress squeaks a little when Sam jumps.

"_Dean_. Do I sound like I'm kidding right now?"

The door opens. John's anger melts into guilt.

Dean's standing shirtless in his boxers, wringing his T-shirt in his hands and not meeting his father's eyes. "I can't get the stupid bandage on," he mumbles. "It's in an awkward place. I can't reach it."

John doesn't say anything, just pushes his way into the bathroom and turns the kid around and applies the bandage himself. Dean pulls his T-shirt back on. Everything's fine.

Or not.

"Get in bed," John grunts, but Dean doesn't move. He's stock still, staring out the bathroom door in trepidation. And trepidation isn't something Dean's known for at all. "Dean?"

"I, uh..."

"What's wrong?"

Dean's eyes skirt away, settle on the bathtub. "Can I sleep in here?"

John's really sick of this juvenile bullshit. "No, you can't sleep in here. Your brother's made room for you. Stop pouting and get your ass in that fucking bed."

"I can't."

John tries to do the counting-himself-into-calm thing in his head but he was never good at that. So he goes for the tried and true method of manhandling instead, grabbing Dean's arm and yanking him forward.

Dean's feet are bare and they make slapping and soft skidding sounds as he tries to pull away. "Dad, _Dad. _I _can't," _he says, and which John totally believes when the kid finally manages to wrangle away, shoving John against the doorway in the process. "I can't, alright?"

"Why _can't_ you?"

And again with the silence. Dean gnaws on his lower lip and looks at the floor and John's running on an hour of sleep and this is fucking it.

"You have three seconds. I'm serious with you right now. I'm going to count to fucking three, Dean."

"Jesus Christ, Dad, am I five?"

"One-"

Apparently one is all it takes.

"There's something under the bed!" Dean yelps and backs his way back into the bathroom, slaps a hand over his face. "Okay? There's something under the fucking bed. Are you happy now?"

John blinks. "Dean, there's nothing...I checked under there-"

"There _is_."

John looks back into the room to see Sam with his big hands planted on the floor and his head hanging down, looking behind the bedskirt to examine this claim.

"Sam?"

"I don't see anything." Sam lifts his head, swipes his rumpled hair out of his eyes and looks at Dean in concern. "Dean, are you sick or something?"

"No, I'm not _sick_," Dean snaps. "There's something under there!" He dodges and skitters away when John reaches to feel his forehead. "Dad, there's something-"

"_Dean_." The tone stills the boy. Always has, always will, and John tries to brush away the guilt that comes with the fact that Dean has actually come to fear it. "Come here."

Dean comes on trembling legs, green eyes zooming in every possible direction, possibly looking for escape, possibly for something that might want to come in. The kid's wired and afraid and John has no fucking idea what happened in the past ten minutes that could have caused this.

"It's okay," John tells him, and tries his best to put something soothing in his voice as he lifts his hand and rests it against his son's forehead. "It's okay, Dean."

There's no fever, but Dean's eyes are wide and his skin is pale and he says, "M'sorry. I didn't mean-"

"It's not your fault," John cuts him off, because it isn't. It can't be. Something's up. Dean doesn't act this way. "I'm gonna check under the bed again, okay? Mine, too. I'll make sure there's nothing there."

Dean nods and stands in the bathroom's threshold, watches as John gets down on his knees and looks under both beds.

And finds nothing.

"There's nothing there, dude," he tells his son. "All clear."

But Dean shakes his head. "No. Dad, there is. There is something under there."

John sighs. "Sammy, can you look in the closet? We never looked. See if there's a cot. I don't think your brother's going to be able to sleep in one of the beds tonight."

"Sure," Sam says, but he doesn't move as John shuffles back into the bathroom.

Again, John pulls the T-shirt off of Dean, and it's quite the extraction. He has to unfold his son's arms to get the sleeves off, because Dean refuses to uncross them.

"I need to look at your wound again, Champ," he says, and he's trying his best to keep his patience now. Dean's a fucking wreck and all of John's earlier ire has been successfully destroyed by guilt and worry. Dean's obedient now, anyway, turning around at the slightest guidance.

"Dad?" Sam calls, as John gently peels the bandage from his eldest's trembling back.

"Yeah?"

"I...I can't go into the closet, I don't think."

The bandage comes off. Dean's back is unmarred. The wound is gone, completely healed. John's mouth drops open as he stares at the space where it just was, absently asks, "Why not, kiddo?"

"This is, um...this is gonna sound crazy. But I think something's in there. Yeah, there's definitely something in there. There's something in the closet. Will you check?"

Shit.

* * *

**TBC...**


	2. Monocles

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Two: Monocles _

* * *

They definitely should have moved on.

Sam's lost all logic, all reason. He keeps trying to sleep next to the door. He's even managed to skirt by John's manhandling hands a few times now, to lay down and obstruct the carefully-laid salt line in favor of being as far from the closet as possible.

"_Sam_," John finally snaps, and he reaches down and pulls his son up by one of those ridiculously long arms of his. "I've checked. You've seen me check. There's nothing in there."

"There's something-"

"There's _nothing."_

But the boy's shaking like a beanpole in the wind and John may be tired and irritated but...this is still his kid. His Sammy, and his Dean, and he needs to make sure they feel safe or none of them are going to get any fucking rest tonight.

And that's why, after he's laid down his fifth salt line of the night, John finds himself halfway off the full-sized mattress with Dean unconsciously curling into him and Sam's limbs somehow managing to flail their way into and over Dean, striking both the eldest Winchester boy and John himself.

Despite being situated at the farthest end of John's bed, which is furthest from the closet, the kid remains restless throughout the night. Dean, however, sleeps safely in this crib constructed of humans.

At least there's that.

They seem okay in the morning when they wake up, if a little embarrassed by whatever the hell happened last night. They won't look at him, or at each other, even as Sam shoves Dean out of the way on the way to the shower, and Dean shoves back, and there's an "_ow_, Dean" and a "suck it up, Tinkerbell."

"Dean," John says, his voice firm even as he rubs at his sleep-deprived eyes.

"What? He _is-_"

"Let your brother have it first. I need to look at your back."

"Again?"

"Yes, again."

Dean tilts his head to the side and eyes John suspiciously. "You said it was gone."

"It was."

"Then why do you need to see it again? If it's gone, it's gone, Dad. You're makin' me feel like I have to find an adult over here, with all your insistences on seeing my freakin' back all the time."

Inappropriate jokes are inappropriate and John doesn't have the patience or the energy to take his son's mouth today. His growl of, "Get over here" is low, but Dean hears it and his eyes shift around for an escape just like they did last night. It's only when John adds the, "_Now."_ that the kid lumbers forward to stand at his father's toes.

John smacks him upside the head.

"_Ow_."

"I don't know what's gotten into you, but cut the shit, Dean."

"M'callin' CPS."

"Man up and act your age."

"Treat me my age and maybe I will."

_Act your age and I'll treat you your age_, John doesn't say. It takes two to tango and it's not that Dean doesn't have a point, because he does. John still struggles with the concept of his children being old enough to take charge of their own lives.

When he's around them, anyway.

And with that thought, the guilt comes flooding back. He's never around when they need him. And when he is...

John swallows that shit down. He doesn't have time for this.

"Just...mind your tone today."

It seems to take Dean some effort to bite his tongue, but eventually, he removes his shirt.

Last night there was a wound, then there wasn't. Last night ended with Dean having a back clean of injuries. That's not the case now. Now, there's a mark. A mark that's purple like a bruise and shaped like a peanut.

"Well?" Dean asks when John hasn't said anything for a while. "Is there anything there?"

John lifts a hand and touches the abrasion with a finger. "Does that hurt?"

"No." John puts a little more pressure on it, but Dean shakes his head. "What is it? What's there?"

"A mark."

"What kinda mark?" Dean pulls away and John lets the shirt fall. He watches as his son looks around the room for a mirror that doesn't exist, and upon accepting its non-existence, his march to the bathroom door, which he doesn't bang on, but instead pushes open and barges his way in.

"_Dean_!" Sam's holler echoes, thumping against the bathroom walls on its way out the door. "There's this thing called privacy. And this other thing called _boundaries_."

"There's this thing called I don't give a shit," Dean retorts. "And this other thing called only one goddamn mirror in the whole room." Sam's shower is still running, and Dean must be saying it in a normal voice, but it sounds like a mutter to John all the way out here. "Jesus fuck, all it needs is a fucking monocle and a top hat." There's a pause. "And a cane. And black tights and white shoes."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Dean?"

"Something's _marked_ me, Sam."

The shower turns off. It's quiet for a moment, and then Sam asks, with the tiniest hint of trepidation in his voice. "What's it look like?"

"Mr. Peanut. You know, except without all those things I just mentioned."

Sam has one, too. Upon this realization, John follows Dean's path into the bathroom, and finds himself treated to the same indignant Sammy squawk as his eldest son.

"_Dad!" _

John ignores it in favor of whipping a towel off the rack and throwing it behind the shower curtain. "Get out here. Where is it?"

Sam comes out of the shower with that ornery look on his face, long hair dripping wet and plastered to his head. The towel's wrapped around his waist and he sniffs indignantly. "See, this right here? This is why I went to college."

Kid just huffs when John turns him around and spies the mark on his shoulder blade. "Were you bleeding last night, Sammy?"

"It's Sam. And I don't know."

Sam's purple sleep shirt is on the bathroom floor, undoubtedly from when it was hastily divested in the act of getting ready for the shower. John swipes it up and examines it, turns it over until he finds the dark patch on the back from where his youngest bled.

John grunts and turns on his heel without a word, exits the bathroom and tosses Sam's soiled shirt on the appropriate duffel. He tugs on his jeans and throws on a buttondown, smoothes a hand over his rumpled hair and considers himself ready to face the day - the day and whatever the fuck is going on in this goddamned town.

"Dad?"

Shit. That thing's back in Dean's voice. That thing from last night that accompanied the child's tremble in his grown boy's limbs.

"Yeah?"

"Where are you going? You're not going anywhere, are you?"

"Dad's going somewhere?" Sam's head pops out of the bathroom, his eyes wide with the same kind of fear they held for whatever imaginary monster was in the closet last night. "Dad...you're not..." The kid sucks in a breath and shifts on his feet and looks at the ground. And then he mumbles, "You're not leaving us, are you? You can't leave."

"Boys-"

"You _can't_," Dean blurts out, and then looks shocked and embarrassed by his own words. It doesn't stop him from trudging forth with it, though. "A lot of bad shit will happen if you leave, Dad. You can't leave us."

The _not again_ goes unsaid, but John sees it in Dean's eyes. He wonders if it's always there, fading in and out, permanent like a stain or a scar. And John put it there.

"What will happen?" he asks.

"Bad things," Sam repeats.

"Like what?"

The boys don't say anything for a moment. Dean looks over his shoulder at Sam who looks back at Dean, and there's something quiet and sad about this exchange. Something that kills John a little on the inside.

And he thinks he knows. Monsters under the bed, in the closet, in the street, in the strange knock on the door when Dad's not home. If they can't see him, they'll get lost. If they can't see him, then they're alone.

What in the fucking hell is going on here, anyway?

"I'm not leaving," he tells them. "I'm just going to the lobby. Shower and get ready. I'll be back by the time you're both done."

"But-"

"I promise," he cuts them off, but they still look unconvinced so he gets the salt out and trails it around the beds and in front of the closet door, puts the container in Dean's hand and tells him to do the door as soon as it shuts behind him. Just like he used to when Dean was just a tiny boy with too many responsibilities.

And then he leaves. He doesn't go to the lobby first, though. He checks the Impala for clues, and comes up with nothing but moldy tuna sandwiches and dirty socks.

_Then_ he goes to the lobby. The same guy is behind the counter and he offers John a friendly wave, which John doesn't return. John's too busy looking at the large colorful bowl filled with chocolate-covered peanut clusters sitting on top of the lobby's sole coffee table.

"Help yourself," the clerk says, but John doesn't.

"Did you happen to see if my kids were eating these last night?" he asks.

The clerk holds up two defensive hands. "Hey, man, if your kids have an allergy or something that's on you-"

"They don't." John's getting irritated. He grits his teeth before continuing, "I just want to know if you happened to see them eating them."

"I have to be honest, mister, I don't remember you coming in with any kids."

"They're grown. One's real tall, shaggy hair. The other-"

Something clicks quickly in the man's eyes. "Leather Jacket stuffed a whole bunch in his mouth while you were checking in. The other one had one, too. Nibbled on it really dainty-like."

"And someone here made them?"

The clerk raises an eyebrow. "Nah, man. Mrs. Voss made them. She's entering them in one of the festival competitions this week. They're great, I know, but she never gives out the recipe. Super secret, she's always saying."

"You've had them," John says. It's not a question.

"'Course. Everyone has. She makes 'em every year."

"And you feel okay?"

Now the guy's looking at John with no small amount of concern. "Yeah, I feel okay... Do _you _feel okay?"

John doesn't feel okay. His kids are all fucked up right now because they ate some kind of supernatural peanut clusters, but he doesn't tell the clerk this. He just brushes the man's question off, snatches up a few of the offending treats, and shoves them in his pocket.

"I'm gonna need another night in this room," he tells the guy before he leaves, shoving over his fraudulent credit card once again.

Because he is. He's gonna take as much time as he needs to to get his boys unmarked and un-scared. The bigger fish can wait. John's an obsessive, negligent son of a bitch and he knows it, but he owes them that much.


	3. Celebrating the Harvest

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Three - Celebrating the Harvest_

* * *

John pulls the chocolate-covered peanut clusters out of his pocket. He's back in the room and Dean's just coming out of the shower, rubbing at his wet head with one towel while holding up another around his waist and he seems sufficiently distracted in this post-shower state, but then his eyes light up. They pin almost instantly on John's treat-laden hand.

Boy has a sixth sense or something. That, or his sense of smell is simply incredible.

"Oh, man. Those things are _delicious_." And the kid strides forward, letting his hair towel fall onto his shoulder as he does so, and he stretches his hand to take one of the cursed little bastards, undoubtedly to consume it faster than John can blink, but that's not happening. Not under John's watch.

John's hands have years and years of war under their belt - his reflexes are practically god-like and he puts them to work now, encompassing the sugar-laden clusters in his fist and zooming his other hand out to slap the back of Dean's greedy appendage like Mary did that one time when the kid was nothing more than a baby, really, three years old with teeny tiny things for hands reaching to grab a cookie that was still hot from the oven.

"_Ow._"

Okay, maybe it was a little harder than the cookie incident.

"They're cursed, Dean," he informs his eldest gruffly.

Sam, who's laying down on the bed with his eyes to the ceiling, scowls. "You could have just _told_ him, you know. You didn't have to hit him."

A familiar ire licks up like fire from the bottom of John's stomach. "I didn't _hit_ your brother, Sam."

"You used physical force to incite pain in order to stop him from doing something you didn't like. You can call it whatever you want, Dad, but in the end, it's the same thing. You hit him." Sam pauses and gnaws on his lip, and John can pretty much see the anger grow in the pinch of his teeth. There's more heat in his voice when he continues. "Which is completely unnecessary because we understand words."

John doesn't want to fight. He doesn't. He's tired and yelling competitions with his youngest always make him more tired. And they hurt his throat, too. "Dean's _fine_, Sam," he says, inserting that hint of finality in his voice that always gets Dean to nod and move on.

Sam's not Dean, though. Sam's the kid who slams on the brakes in the middle of the night, who yells in his father's face in the street and doesn't back down, doesn't get back into the car, not even when John uses his god-like hands to get scary and put him back there himself.

"He's not _fine_," Sam snaps.

"Sam," Dean warns. He's just been standing there, letting them have it, but John sees now the line of tension in his son's jaw, the sad look in his eyes and in his lips and goddamnit. John needs to stop. John needs to stop for Dean because Dean...Dean deserves that much.

"You're _not_." Sam tells Dean, and then turns his head ever so slightly back in John's direction, his voice raising as he goes. "How can he be? You're a controlling sonuvabitch who orders him around all the time and he thinks he has to take it because you're his father and you know best but you don't give a fuck about him at all. He's just there for you to bark orders at and smack on the fucking nose when he brings in the paper wrong because you don't know how to use normal fucking words like a normal fucking human being-"

"You want words?" John's had it. He can't take any more of this. Not right now. Not for a little fucking slap on the back of the hand because he didn't want his son to have _two_ fucking peanut marks on his back and, fuck knows...a fear of butterflies or something. "I'll give you fucking words. We can have words right now with your six four ass slung over my goddamn knee-"

"_Dad_," Dean interjects in the same warning tone he'd just given Sam, maybe with a little more ferocity, even, and it's enough to give John pause.

He can't stop there, though. "You just let me know, kiddo. I can arrange it."

And Sam sits up and backs himself against the headboard, glares a dark glare, but doesn't continue the argument, not even to point out the utter hypocrisy in John's threat.

"Well, that was fun," Dean mutters, as Sam sulks. John just wants to get moving.

"Get dressed, Dean," he says. "We have to get going."

"Where are we going?" Sam demands, because he never stays quiet for long.

John closes his eyes for a moment, counts in his head, and answers as calmly as he can:

"We're going to the peanut festival."

* * *

Peanut festivals aren't all about peanuts. John realizes this when they gain admission, and what greets them are bright colors in the form of tents and ferris wheels and other little carnival rides, the scent of funnel cake and barbecue intermingling with that of farm animals. A man who's happy enough to appear deranged slaps itinerary in their hands as soon as they walk in, and tells them to remember not to miss the Little Miss Peanut Pageant.

"The girls need a supportive audience," he says gaily, slapping Dean on the shoulder. "Pretty little things they are."

And John cringes internally and tries to wipe the creepiness of actual human beings off of him. He grabs Dean by the jacket sleeve and pulls him away from this man, whom his paternal instinct of twenty-seven years already has marked in red as a predator.

That doesn't mean he won't ask him questions.

"Are there any cooking competitions?" he asks in as even a tone as he can manage.

"There's a recipe competition!" the man tells him cheerfully, his eyes drifting to Sam even as he talks to John. Or John's pretty sure they drift to Sam. He doesn't know if he's being paranoid or not, but it doesn't matter because he hooks a finger into one of his tall son's belt loops, anyway, and tugs the boy back, nudges with a gentle boot to the side of the long leg until Sam gets the hint and stands behind him, next to his brother. "Every contestant has to use peanuts in some way because this is a peanut festival, as you must know. I assure you the outcome is always tasty."

"Great."

"It's at seven o'clock tonight."

They'll be here all day, John realizes with some trepidation, and then hopes beyond hope that they find this Mrs. Voss lady far sooner than when this peanut competition is deemed to commence.

"Alright," John says, and leads his sons away from this unsavory individual and towards the sounds of joyful trumpets and screaming children.

"I spy meatball subs," Dean says, almost immediately, for the vast majority of the venders are towards the entrance, advertising their food for an exorbitant price.

Three dollars for a bottle of water. They have to be joking.

Dean pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and shuffles through his poker winnings. "Sammy, you want a meatball sub?"

"No, Dean, I do not want a meatball sub," Sam drones. It sounds like they've had this conversation before, like Dean should know better.

"You want a fruit cup?" Dean asks, a hint of a teasing smile tugging at his lips. "I'll buy you a fruit cup."

Sam glares and he doesn't say he wants a fruit cup. But he doesn't say he doesn't want one, either, and Dean just seems to know as he turns on his heel to head for the tent.

"Dean." John, of course, stops him before he gets too far on his journey towards a simple pleasure. The stop is abrupt, dust rises around Dean's boots, up from the earth, throwing it like a brick in John's face that he's holding Dean back. Again.

"He just wants a fucking sandwich..." Sam mutters.

And Dean can have his sandwich. And Sam can have his fruit cup. All John asks is, "Make sure there's no peanuts, alright?"

And the cheer reenters Dean's green eyes as he nods and gives John a, "Yessir" before sauntering off to the vendor with a slight spring in his step.

John scopes the area, realizes he's surrounded by food, but it's not going to be here. The recipe competition. No, that'll be further down past the rigged carnival games, before the farm animals. Probably right next to the Little Miss Peanut Pageant. There's a map in the itinerary that tells him he's right, and he starts unconsciously moving in that direction until his son's nervous voice stops him.

"Dad, don't go."

The belligerence is gone. Sam's biting the nail of his right thumb like he used to when he was little and it was the first day of a new school, one of the many first days, when he was afraid his teacher wouldn't like him, or he'd get lost on his way to his classroom and it tugs at what's left of John's heartstrings, a little, remembering Sam when he was just a wisp of a boy. The morning's fight seems universes away.

"I'm not goin' anywhere, Sammy," he says.

Sam shifts on his feet. John reaches up and takes the boy gently about the wrist, pries the hand away from the mouth.

"I just..." the kid looks at the ground, embarrassed. "It feels like I'm gonna get lost if you leave, or you'll get lost, and we'll never find each other again. And it makes zero sense because I went without you for _years_. What's even going on?"

"We're gonna find out," John tells him. "We'll make it stop."

Sam nods and shifts closer, until his arm is just barely touching John's. Some tension seems to seep out of his long frame at the faint contact, but now his eyes are skittering over to where Dean walked off to.

"Where's Dean?" he asks.

There's a large crowd of people around the meatball sub tent, some of them more well-fed than others and John's sure Dean's just hidden in the mass.

"What if he got lost?" Sam asks, and there's a tremor in his voice that John remembers from last night, from this morning, even, when John left for not even ten minutes. "Dad, what if we lost Dean?"

This would be the end of the world. John can hear it in his son's voice, an apocalypse of burning buildings and screaming innocents, homes and families crumbling to the ground under a sky red with fire.

Or maybe that was the war before this one. Sometimes it all gets muddled in John's head, people and demons. All he sees is the tragedy.

"We didn't lose Dean, Sammy," he says, and taps the boy's elbow. "Stay close."

Sam stays close. They find Dean tense and wild-eyed with a fruit cup in his hand.

"Oh, thank fuck," he says, and that's all he says, but John can tell the separation had him freaked out, too. Dean pushes the fruit cup and a plastic spoon into one of Sam's big hands. "Dude, they take forever with these sandwiches. I expect sheer excellence."

He gets it, John thinks three minutes later. The kid looks like he's in heaven rolling the meat and bread around in his mouth, savoring it as his brother picks chunks of pineapple and grapes out of his cup.

"Hey," Sam says as they walk, calm and even good-humored now that they're all together again. He points to a children's ride with his plastic spoon, the tiny airplanes smoothly cascading through the air all bright and jolly in their primary colors. Little tykes squeal happily, clap their hands, giggle. "Tiny Tots Air Adventure. Wanna go for a ride, Dean?"

"Shut up."

"You know you want to."

"I see clowns up ahead," Dean replies, and Sam stops in his tracks.

There _are_ clowns up ahead. Several of them, even. Holding up a sign that advertises "Clown College. Only the naturally funny need apply."

"You wanna apply to clown college, geek? I'll pay your first semester's tuition."

"We're turning around," Sam replies, and he spins on his heel and starts walking in the opposite direction only to stop ten steps later. "Dad? Make Dean turn around." Hysteria. John hears it in Sam's voice.

"Sammy-"

"If a clown comes near me, I swear to God I will stab him in the heart."

Shit. They're turning around.

John grabs Dean by the elbow and drags him along until he walks by himself, at which point he leads both of his sons to an empty area behind the restrooms.

"It reeks back here," Dean says, crinkling his nose. "Dad, what are we-"

"I need all of your weapons," he says tersely.

"But-"

"Now."

They both grumble, but obey. John can't let them have any weaponry while they're under the influence of...whatever this is. An innocent clown might get killed, a child's airplane ride might get shot down, who the fuck knows what awful thing might happen.

He doesn't know how he's going to fit three more guns and five more knives on his person, though.

"Really?"

Sam shrugs. "You told us always to be prepared."

John did tell them that. He sighs, shoves another handgun in one of his jacket pockets, and hopes the day isn't going to be as long as it seems.


	4. Funnel Cake

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Four - Funnel Cake_

* * *

The air is cool and the breeze is faint, but Sam and Dean still trail after him, dragging their shoes like its the middle of summer and they're barely out of pubescence. John can't blame them. It's been an hour and half of walking, attempting to squeeze between crowds of families and guarding their ears against screaming children and scolding mothers, teenagers who kiss too loudly and aren't afraid to let it be heard.

And still, nothing. No Mrs. Voss.

He'd tell them buck up if it were any other day in any other situation, but he reckons the lethargy is a good thing today. It's better for them to be tired and sulky than stimulated and afraid - especially since the fear's getting worse. _Dean's_ shying away from the clowns now, too, and they both started walking in a different direction when faced with the terror that was Mr. Spook's Haunted Funhouse.

"You've seen _real _ghosts," John reminded his sons. "Hundreds of them." But he was only greeted with vehement shakes of the head and two vaguely respectable attempts to walk away with dignity still intact.

"Can we sit down?" Sam asks now, the barest hint of a whine creeping into his voice.

There are picnic tables about fifty feet ahead of them, and only a few people are sitting down at the moment. So John nods and the boys start walking purposefully in that direction - they stop however, when they realize he's more than a few steps behind and wait for him to catch up.

They get nervous so easily.

Dean runs a hand over his head, and there's something bright and skittish in his green eyes. He tries to cover this up, of course, by getting mouthy. "Gettin' old, Dad?"

John grunts and pushes the boy forward with a hand to his back, does the same to Sam, until they've reached a table. Sam sits down first, his back against the table, and Dean, surprisingly, takes a seat directly next to his little brother, sits close enough that their elbows graze.

They look up at him just like they did last night on the bed, waiting to hear a lecture even though they haven't earned one this time. John frowns and thinks back, wonders if this is how they always look at him, waiting for him to tell them they've done something wrong and he realizes - not for the first time, mind you - that they've come to expect this for a reason.

_I'm sorry_, he thinks about saying, imagining the confused looks that would cross their young faces, the suspicious _it's...okay?_, or the possible concern -_ you feeling alright, Dad?_

"I need to know how you're feeling," he says instead, because he doesn't want the matter at hand to derail into some kind of nonsensical family melodrama.

Sam looks at Dean. Dean looks at Sam. They both look back at John and shrug their shoulders.

"We're fine," Dean says.

"Dean," John sighs, and scrubs a hand over his face. "I need to know exactly how you're feeling. You're both tired. I can tell."

"I'm a little tired," Sam admits.

Dean snorts. "Yeah? D'ya think the sinister clowns are sucking the energy out of the atmosphere?"

"Shut up, Dean. You're tired, too."

"Am not."

"Are, too. You're blinking slowly. And _you're_ getting jumpy around the stupid clowns, too, jerk-off."

"Princess."

"Dunce."

"Douche."

"Asinine imbecile."

"That one was redundant, Maxi-Pad-With-Wings."

"You know, every time you call me a girl name or a name that relates to a girl, you're being demeaning towards the female sex as a whole. Did you know that, Dean?"

"Belladonna."

Sam blinks. "That's a flower, Dean. A poisonous flower."

"Just like you," Dean replies.

"_Boys_."

John's reprimand is louder than intended. Both of his sons jump a little in their seats and straighten noticeably. The heads of suburban mothers with young children turn in their direction, either to glare at him, or to look on curiously.

"Mind your own fucking business," he mutters, knowing full well that they can't hear it. Then, to his sons, "Sit still."

They sit still.

He puts his hand to each of their foreheads, feels the unnatural warmth exuding from their skin.

Great. Now they have fevers.

Peanuts are whores. And John's subconscious is apparently demeaning towards the working girl.

His hand must have rested too long on Sam's head, because he doesn't realize what he's doing until the kid jerks away. "What's up with you?"

"You're both sick."

"_You're_ sick," Dean mutters.

"Dean Winchester."

Dean's eyebrows jump to his hairline, practically. John understands this reaction. Kid hasn't been called by his full name since he was six and caught shoplifting candy - a lollypop for Sam, if he remembers correctly. But whatever. It slipped out. There it is.

He makes a frustrated noise and pinches the bridge of his nose between two coarse fingers. "Do I need to take the two of you back to the motel?"

_Are we twelve?_ their eyes ask sardonically. And then they sober, and John can see them thinking, the panic building - they're thinking about being alone. In the motel with the bed and the closet and Dean's quick to say, "No, sir. We'll be..." _Good_, he was going to say, but he's twenty-fucking-seven and John can see him swallowing that sad child down. "I'll keep Sammy in line."

"_Hey_!" Sam protests.

"Because you both have a fever," John clarifies, even though he did mean it as a partial threat. "Do you feel like you have to lay down?"

But their heads are already shaking, and they're opening their mouths and shutting them, trying not to explode with promises to be good and pleas not to be left alone. This time, though, John wouldn't have told them to man up.

They man up, anyway.

"We're okay, Dad," Dean says, in as sure a tone as he can manage. "We don't need to lay down."

"Are you sure?"

Dean nods. "I think...I think all we need is a funnel cake."

John blinks. "A...funnel cake."

Dean's head bobs all the more enthusiastically. "A funnel cake. With powdered sugar. And some beer. For, you know, liquids and stuff. They're supposed to make you feel better when you're sick, right?"

"Idiot," Sam mumbles, and Dean elbows him in the side. "Stop it, Dean."

"_You_ stop it."

"You stop it. _I_ didn't do anything."

"Boys," John says for the second time in less than ten minutes. He manages to keep his voice low this time, so the unwanted eyes will keep to themselves. Control. He's in control. Although, he's surprised at the words that come out of his mouth next: "I'll get you some funnel cake."

"You...will?" The boys are talking in unison again.

He will. John has no fucking idea why, but he has the sudden desire to spoil his kids in some semblance of the word.

"I will. Funnel cake and water."

The disappointment is fleeting across Dean's face and the toe of a large boot scuffs the ground. Then he brightens. "Can we have our guns back, too? That'll make us feel-"

"Don't press your luck, kid. You know that's not safe right now." When it's obvious that those hopes have been successfully dashed, John continues, "I want you to stay here. I'll be back soon with your...snacks."

Sam snorts. "Snacks? Dad, we're not..." the boy trails of as John's words fully set in. "We'll go with you."

"You'll stay here," John repeats firmly. "You need to reserve your energy."

"No, Dad, you can't leave us-"

"I'm not leaving you. I'll be back in ten minutes tops."

"_Dad_-"

"_Sam_," John growls the name. Sam slouches at the tone, sulks. "You'll be okay. You and your brother are going to sit right here and you're not going to move. I'm going to come back with your funnel cake and your water and then we'll get this show back on the goddamn road. This is the plan. We're not deviating from it. Understood?"

"But, what if someone-"

"Nobody's gonna get you," John tells his extremely tall son. "You can take them if they try, I promise you." Sam's eyes are still wide with fear. John sighs and closes his eyes and tries to tell himself that his kids will be fine. They're not kids anymore, not in the strictest sense of the word, and they'll be just fine sitting at this picnic table in the middle of a peanut festival. He opens his eyes, squeezes Sam's shoulder with a firm hand, strong and secure. "I'll be right back. My phone's on if you need me."

Sam sucks in a breath and nods. At least there's that.

Dean's all nerves, too, though, and John brushes a hand over the kid's spiky head and asks, "You got this, champ?"

True to form, Dean replies, "'Course, Dad. I got this."

"Good boy."

John turns around, ready to head off for the nearest funnel cake vendor when he hears a sharp inhalation of breath and the back of his jacket is snatched up in a big hand. Sam's hand.

"Sammy..."

"Will you..." the boy trails off as John looks down at him, his eyes skittering this way and that. He lowers his voice so much that John has to lean in to hear him. "Will you check for clowns?"

John will check for the clowns. He assures his youngest of this before he takes off. He'll be back soon and they'll be just fine.

They will. They'll be fine.

He keeps telling himself this, even as the ominous feeling in his stomach tells him otherwise.


	5. Brittle

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Five - Brittle_

* * *

The funnel cake is steaming with heat when the guy behind the counter hands it over. It's absolutely smothered in confectioner's sugar and while, at the moment, his eldest son is out of his sight, John can already see Dean's bright-eyed excitement over eating it, the quick, rabid movements of his fingers as he picks it apart and shoves it into his hungry mouth.

Dean always eats like he's starving. And he always eats the worst things.

Mary would be displeased.

John tries to shake this thought away. Mary's long gone and this isn't the time or place, but...maybe he can get the kid to eat something green. A piece of broccoli. A salad, even-

"Goddamnit, Winchester," he grumbles to himself, because what is he even thinking, anyway? He needs to be focused if he's going to fix whatever it is that's broken in his kids' heads, whatever spring popped loose that set off this desperate need they haven't possessed since they graduated from toddlerhood - this need for him to stay in sight.

His head is all messed up, though, just like theirs are, and he's remembering his wife and her smile and the way she held their children when they were born, how she held _him_ sometimes late at night when Dean was asleep and Sammy was cooing in his crib, when John would wake up remembering gunshots and bombs and dead soldiers and she would tell him it was okay, that he was okay, that he could forget that blood on his hands because his hands weren't bloody anymore. They were gentle hands that belonged to a good man. To a good father.

John used to be a good father. And that's why now he slides over another buck fifty and orders a fruit cup.

He manages to stuff two three-dollar bottles of water into his weapon-laden jacket and balances the funnel cake and fruit cup in his hands. It's been longer than ten minutes since he left the boys - the crowds are awful and John has decided that he's never stepping foot in a town that holds peanut festivals ever again. Bad things are sure to happen in such towns, this much is obvious.

They'll be fine, though, when he reaches them. He's sure of this. They're sitting at a picnic table surrounded by families and they'll be just fine. They've been on their own for practically as long as they've been alive and leaving them for ten minutes when they're fully grown isn't going to-

"Dude, like I said, we're not interested." Dean's voice carries in the wind, and so does the exasperation that tells John he's been saying this for a while now. The people in front of him divert paths, and his sons come into view, huddled together on one bench while the Little Miss Peanut Pageant enthusiast has made himself comfortable on the other side of the table, is leaning across and in real close and John feels that hot, angry something rise from his gut as he marches forward.

A quick glance at his boys tell him that Sam's gone pale and Dean's not faring much better.

"Can I help you, sir?" he asks in clipped tones, turning to the man with an expression that says quite clearly that he doesn't plan on helping him at all.

His inquiry is returned with a smile so jolly it's demented, and for the first time, John notices the plastic sack of peanut brittle sitting on top of the table. The man picks it up, dangles it from between two fingers, and says, "I was just seeing if your handsome young sons would like some peanut brittle, sir."

John's half-surprised Dean didn't take any. Although, he's pretty sure the kid was tempted, what with the way he's lusty-eyed and reaching for the funnel cake in John's hands. John lets him take it, sets the fruit cup down at the end of the table.

"Thank you for your offer," he tells the man. "But they're old enough to know not to take candy from strangers."

Actually they might need a refresher course in that, John amends in his head, thinking about the peanut clusters in the motel lobby that caused all of this.

The man raises an eyebrow. "It's-"

"I can see it's peanut brittle," John cuts him off. "Figure of speech. Now to be frank, you really creep me out and I would be very grateful if you would just stay the hell away from my kids. They're not feeling well and they shouldn't have to be subjected to this."

The man's jolly smile turns cold. "Subjected to what?" he asks. "To peanut brittle?"

John smiles back. "To you."

A brief staring contest commences. John wins because he always wins. The man backs down, gets up with his peanut brittle in his hand and grumbles something about knowing when he's not wanted.

"This is what happens when you leave," Sam says when the creep is gone. He reaches for the fruit cup, takes it in a still-quivering hand. "He kept touching my knee under the table."

"He _what_?" John snaps, and both of his children go rigid, Sam halfway through peeling the top off the fruit cup, and Dean with a piece of broken-off funnel cake in his hand. They're scared of him, too. John is scary. Just like the monsters under the bed, and inside the closet. Just like the clowns and the creepster who touches cursed young men under tables.

He takes in a breath and lets it out, says, "I'm sorry," in a quiet, but genuine tone.

"I tried to..." Dean trails off, still skittish. He looks like he did when he was sixteen and Sam was twelve and had snuck out out under his watch. Like he hadn't done his job and John would be angry. "I kicked 'im, Dad, but he wouldn't leave. I would've gotten up, but...whatever the fuck this is? I'm so freaked out, I think if I'd tried to make him go away, I would've..."

John waits. Dean doesn't continue. The piece of funnel cake is still clamped between his thumb and index, waiting to be eaten. "You would have what, Dean?"

Dean opens his mouth only to close it again. He can't get the words to come out.

"He would've killed him," Sam says softly. "The fear's there until whatever causes it is dead."

"Yeah," Dean agrees. "Wouldn't have ended well."

John swallows. He wonders if this is a side-effect of the curse, or if its just the way his boys are wired, because really...neither would be surprising. And they're freaked out, and if he thinks too much about it, he's going to freak out, too, so he just reaches over and pulls the fruit cup out of Sam's hands.

"_Hey_."

Sam's indignant tone is suddenly refreshing. Dean snorts at the sound of it, then unleashes a similar-sounding, "The fuck?" when John grabs a hold of the paper plate of funnel cake.

He switches them around, placing the fruit cup in Dean's hands and the funnel cake in front of Sam. Pulls out the water and sets a bottle in front of each of them.

"But-" Dean protests

"Eat the fruit cup and you can have some of the funnel cake." It's too little and it's way too late, but at least it will make John feel less like a total failure.

"But-"

"Seriously, kid. Does it sound like I'm asking or telling?"

"Aw, man," Dean grumbles. He picks at a purple grape, narrows his eyes at it in distaste. "Really?"

John nods. He expects Sam to raise a fuss, seeing as how his youngest clearly wanted that fruit cup, but the boy is too busy looking smug about this act of parental authority being held over his big brother.

Dean picks at the fruit cup. Sam picks at the funnel cake. John sits down and pulls out his cell, scrolls through the numbers for a contact who he hasn't made enemies with, yet.

He comes up with no one.

Sam's voice interrupts him within two minutes. "Dad, Dean's dropping the fruit on the ground."

John shoots a look up at his eldest, who's looking sheepish with a quarter cup of fruit left in his hand.

"Are you kidding me with that? How old are you?"

"To be honest?" Dean asks. "I'm not sure anymore."

"Eat the rest of it or we're having words." John's always threatening words these days. Dean's always smirking at the threatening of the words like it's a funny little joke John likes to tell just for his amusement.

""Always with the words."

"Eat it, Dean, before I fucking feed it to you."

Dean pops the fruit into his mouth, chews and swallows like he's swallowing arsenic. But he eats it. He's been alive for twenty-seven years. That's long enough to know not to take candy from strangers. It's also long enough to know that "words" is nothing but a euphemism when it comes out of his father's mouth.

He finishes off the fruit cup under John's watchful gaze, immediately pulls the funnel cake away from Sam and tears into it.

And just like with the meatball sub from not even two hours ago, Dean looks like he's in heaven.

At least there's that.

* * *

Seven o'clock creeps in and the sky is dark and the carnival lights are bright. The rides are cheap, and they squeak as they barrel forward and spin around and rock back and forth, children and teenagers and adults screaming and talking and laughing and John really just wants it all to shut the fuck up because Sam and Dean are sluggish behind him. They were pepped up for a while there, full of sugar and water and nervous energy, but now they're stumbling over their own feet.

"Dad?" Sam asks, when they're almost there, almost to the tent that a kind woman had pointed them in the direction of. The tent where Mrs. Voss will be.

"Yeah?"

Sam doesn't respond. John doesn't turn around to look at him.

"Sammy, _what_?"

The next sound his son makes is a retching sound. This time John does turn around to see Sam bent over a trash can, hurling, and Dean looking green behind him with an awkward, but comforting hand patting his little brother's back.

"M'sorry," Sam gasps, and there are tears running down his face from the exertion and people are moving away and looking away and they're all very disgusted, John can see. The fuckers. People need to have some motherfucking sympathy.

"S'okay, Sammy," Dean says. "You do what you have to do."

"Did Dad leave?" Sam asks, his voice desperate and tense as he tries to hold in the next wave of sick. "Dean, did Dad-"

Fuck. This fucking curse. They were so close and now this.

But John says. "I'm right here, kiddo" and he's by his son's side in a snap, brushing damp tendrils of long brown hair from the kid's face. "I'm going to make this go away, okay?"

Sam nods. Then he hurls again.

"Your brother's going to look after you. I need to-"

"_No_," Sam spits.

"Sammy, you're too sick to come and I need to make this stop. You want this to stop, right?"

"You're such a fucking dick, Dad," is what he gets in reply and John tries to tell himself that Sam doesn't mean it. Or he does. Sam would always mean that, but that doesn't change what John has to do and Sam's not thinking straight right now, anyway, because he can't. "And for the last fucking time, it's _Sam_."

John ignores him, scans the area and sees an empty bench next to a face-painting set-up. "Dean? I want you and your brother to sit over there and don't move. I'll be back as soon as I can."

He doesn't wait for the "yessir" or the argument, whichever was about to leave Dean's mouth, he just goes on his way. He feels guilty as fuck for doing it, he does, but he has to do it. The sooner he solves this, the sooner his kids get better, the sooner they can get back on the road and do what they have to do to avenge Mary.

Who would really fucking hate him right now.

John tries not to think about that.

Judges are tasting the dishes. The contestants stand behind a cloth-draped table all in a row, their names displayed on folded over pieces of cardboard that stand in front of them. Mrs. Voss is around John's age, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older, it's hard to tell, but she's sporting a pressed blouse and prim, rectangular glasses, a mid-length hair cut with not a hair out of place. Stepford to a tee.

_This bitch_, John thinks. _This bitch and her peanuts_.

He's just waiting for his opening now. He'll take her aside after the judging is over and then...then he'll fix this.


	6. Butterscotch Chips

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Six - Butterscotch Chips_

* * *

She comes in third. A balding man in his forties makes his way down the line, and upon reaching her, lays a shimmering, gold ribbon out in front of the heaping plate of chocolate-covered peanut clusters.

She smiles. John can tell its not a genuine smile. Those peanut clusters are made of children's fears, and this Voss woman undoubtedly believes children's fears to be the most delicious things to ever grace this plane of existence.

He's going to stab her in the fucking throat.

He waits to make his move, waits for the crowd to get distracted by the treats, waits for Mrs. Voss to smile so hard that she can't smile anymore so she backs up and makes her way behind the tent to let out the disappointment of defeat where no one can see her.

John follows, pushing through and past masses of people until the crowds thin out and then he's behind the tent, too, and the only people around are in the distance, moving past them, not paying attention, and Voss isn't either. She's distracted by nothing in particular as she absently wipes her hands on her immaculate blouse.

And then her eyes start to rain like it's April in Indiana, one hand moves up to her mouth while the other rests on her abdomen. She chokes on a sob.

John doesn't know what the fuck this is and he doesn't care.

He's going to stab her in the fucking throat.

He's quick and quiet on his feet, moves with grace with his hand up and out and then it's slammed against her mouth, silencing her as he pushes her against a sturdy aluminum tent pole.

"What did you do?" he growls. "What did you put in the fucking peanuts?"

She's screaming against his hand. John can tell. Her breath is warm and desperate and full and she's writhing helplessly.

John gives her a shake. "Calm the fuck down! Tell me what you did to them. My kid is puking his goddamn guts out, for chrissakes."

And just like that, she stops screaming. Her horrified eyes are still horrified, but not in that way that she's fearing for her life. He relaxes his hold, she pulls away from his hand.

"Your son is sick?" she asks, her voice surprisingly calm, though tinted with some small amount of concern. "He's throwing up?"

"_Yes_. What did you-"

"Is that why I lost?" she asks. There's some kind of odd realization blooming in her quickly drying eyes. A realization that John suspects has absolutely nothing to do with why his monster-killing sons are suddenly terrified of things that are completely imaginary. "Goodness me, I knew I shouldn't have borrowed those butterscotch chips from Sandra Levingston." Her face hardens. Her eyes narrow. "That crafty whore."

"What-"

But Voss is done with John apparently, and she walks away with purpose. John follows her on suddenly clumsy feet, completely taken off-guard by this woman's sudden change in demeanor, her deliberate charge towards the front of the tent.

A slightly younger blond woman with a statuesque figure and a blue ribbon pinned to her low-cut, black sweater smiles prettily when she sees Voss coming.

"Abigail!" she exclaims in a forced tone of friendly greeting.

"Sandra!" Abigail Voss replies in a similar tone. Then she slams her small, clean fist into Sandra Levingston's face.

"What the-!" Sandra's hand is clutching her nose. John can already see hints of blood.

"You slut! You _sabotaged_ me! Tainted butterscotch chips? Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

"What are you _talking_ about, you crazy bitch? Those were my best fucking butterscotch chips!"

Hair pulling ensues. John stays around only long enough to determine that neither woman has any idea about his sons' current ailment, and that if he brought it up with either of them, he'd be arrested or shipped off to a mental asylum within the blink of an eye.

The only thing John knows now is that he's back to square one.

And that Sam and Dean aren't sitting on the bench where he left them.

It takes all of his will power not to start yelling out their names like they're five and lost and he's frantic. Even though that's what it feels like and why the fuck didn't they just stay where he told them to?

He feels feverish himself now, scanning the area with near-panic-stricken eyes because why the fuck did he leave them? This is his fault. This is all John's fault. He's a bad father and a bad man and he deserves all the nightmares he still has, he deserves to be drunk and alone and covered in that fine mixture of monster and human blood he's come to acquire over the years.

There are two girls at the face-painting stand, maybe a little younger than Sam, and John shuffles up to them, words tumbling out of his mouth in ways he can't control, "Did you girls happen to see two boys here? They're in their twenties, one of them was real sick-"

"The unnaturally pretty ones?" one girl interrupts him, and then they both giggle in that way that girls do when they have a secret joke that's painfully obvious.

"I...yes," John says, because his sons...they are. They're good-looking kids.

"Are you their dad?" the other girl asks.

"Yes," John replies. "Do you know where they-"

"Oh my god, Ber_nice_, that so explains it!" They burst into giggles.

_Bernice?_ John wonders, and then shakes his head. He doesn't have the time to ponder other parents' name choices. "Look, can you just tell me if you saw where they-"

"I think they went to the bathroom," the girl who isn't Bernice says. "The adorable one in the leather jacket started looking like he was about to hurl."

"Thanks," John says brusquely, and he whirls around, moves in steadfast strides in the direction of the restroom, tries to ignore the "_Fuck, Doris, what I'd give to take a dip into _that_ gene pool_."

There are some scary females in this world, John has decided. Or maybe it's just at peanut festivals. He doesn't really know for sure.

He's glad this place has real restrooms, though, and not Porta-Potties, even if the reek is close to being just as awful. It's nice not to have to knock on door to door to find his sons, but instead just to walk into this one hellhole and hear his eldest heaving in one of the stalls while Sam stands outside, holding the broken door closed, grey in the face as he tries to comfort his brother with a softly-spoken story about this outrageous porno he saw once in college.

John pretends he didn't hear that. "Sammy?"

Sam's head turns, his green eyes at first wide and startled, then relieved. "Dad? Dean, Dad's-"

"Dad?" Dean's voice is weak, but hopeful. "Did you get the bitch?"

John swallows. "No...no, son, it wasn't her."

A pause follows. John shifts, ashamed. He should have fixed this. This should be fixed by now.

"Well, that explains why I'm still on the verge of pissing myself, I guess."

"I'm..." Sorry. John is sorry. John won't say he's sorry and he does't know why. Because he's an ass, maybe, which would explain what he says next: "Next time I tell you to stay put, you stay the fuck put."

Sam's eyes narrow. "We were fucking _sick_, Dad."

"There was a trashcan three feet away."

"And there were people _every_where!"

John's not going to continue this argument. He waits until Dean's stomach has calmed down before nudging Sam out of the way and heading into the stall. He leans down and puts his hands gently around Dean's sides, stands the boy on his feet. Dean leans heavily against him all the way to the car.

John drives back to the motel with Sam riding shotgun, or sleeping shotgun, his head lolling over to rest on John's shoulder and Dean in the backseat with his eyes closed, his face tense and his arms crossed tightly around his stomach. John hopes this sickness is just another passing phase, like the cuts on their backs, because he doesn't know how long its going to take to find the real culprit behind this curse.

Once back at the motel, he gets them out of the car one by one, gets them settled on the bed furthest from the closet, helps them out of their jackets, pulls the heavy boots off their feet.

"Dad..."

Dean's hand shoots out and he grabs a fistful of his father's shirt before John can get up from the side of the bed he's sitting on, squeezes it so tight his knuckles are pale as blades. Big, green eyes move down towards the mattress, indicating that the fear is still there.

Something's under the bed.

John ghosts a hand over his son's spiky head.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promises, and it's a promise he keeps. He settles on the bed for the night with his back against the headboard, Dean's arm unconsciously draped over his legs. Sleep plays with his eyes, but John tries his best not to give in to the game. He keeps watch over his sleeping sons as the night lingers on.


	7. Sick

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Seven - Sick_

* * *

John feels like the walking dead. Which, in a really terrible way, is kind of funny because now he's feeling guilty about all those zombie heads he's cut off in his day. Not that there's been that many, but there's been a few. And now he understands that it wasn't fair game - not if being a dead man walking really feels like this, with this head full of cotton and eyelids that are far too heavy to stay open.

He yawns, but doesn't cover his mouth. His hand is too busy gauging the temperature of his youngest, who is looking to be feeling at least slightly better considering the monstrously pissy expression he's wearing at the moment.

"Don't look at me like that, Sam."

"Well, stop touchin' my head."

"You're still warm."

"Considering you've already determined this, I don't see any reason for you to still have your hand on my forehead."

He's right, John knows. The only reason his hand is still on Sam's forehead is because John's brain is working too slowly at the moment to move it. So he moves it now, letting his hand fall to his side as he considers Sam with stern eyes. "I'm doing my best, you know."

Sometimes John is certain this boy is still fourteen years old, with the way he still crosses his arms and huffs and slouches in that sulky way of his, the way he mutters, "Whatever."

Maybe if he were somewhat better rested, John wouldn't snap so quickly. Well, he probably would, but _maybe_ he wouldn't. "Get back in bed."

"No."

John makes a noise like an angry dog between his teeth, but Sam doesn't seem fazed at all. He just sits there and peers up at his father from his perch on the end of the bed, eyes unimpressed behind his mess of bangs. Dean's in the shower, and John's kind of glad for it at the moment. He always feels bad when his eldest is forced to intervene.

He pushes the hair out of Sam's face with a gruff finger. "You're twenty-two. Quit it with the brat act and do as you're goddamn told for once."

Sam swipes a hand at the intrusive digit. "That made no sense. What you just said made no sense. You never make any _sense_, Dad!"

John knows it didn't and he knows he doesn't, but he's tired as all fuck and he just wants to get the boys settled in for the day so he can go to sleep. Sam's warm, but he's better than yesterday, which means whatever this is will wear off, just like the wounds, and once they're recuperated, they can get back to solving the problem and then back to what they were supposed to be doing this entire time: finding the fucking demon.

He's too tired for this, though. So he tries a different tactic.

"You're right."

Sam's eyes widen in surprise. "I am?"

"You are." John nods. He gentles his hand and runs it over his son's head. "I'm sorry."

The fever must be fucking with the kid, because he leans into his father's touch for a moment before jerking away. His eyes narrow suspiciously. "Are you possessed?"

"No, Sammy, I'm not pos-"

"_Christo_." He glares at John for a few seconds, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the demonic flinch.

John sighs and shakes his head. "Sam."

"What's wrong with you?"

John's tired. That's what's wrong with him.

"I'm tired," he admits. "That's what's wrong with me. I'm tired and you're sick and I just want you to get back in bed and rest up while I get some sleep. You can research if you want. Just...please?"

Sam's looking kind of guilty. Good. He should. If he were to keep up this defiance thing, John might finally crack and do something he doesn't want to do, say something he doesn't want to say, something that would make Sam want to leave, something that would turn Dean into the crushed shell of a boy he was not even two years ago.

Dean's never been able to function very well without his brother.

"Can I have my computer?" Sam asks, and John blinks, the polite bid for permission taking him aback. Of course Sam can have his computer. He can get right up and take it. He's just trying to apologize without saying the word, and John's not even sure he has anything to apologize for.

"Yeah," John says. He cups the back of Sam's fevered neck for a moment, gives it a gentle squeeze in silent thanks. Sam smiles slightly in return. They're good. For now at least.

He shuffles a few steps across the room and pulls Sam's laptop out for him, waits for the boy to climb back into bed before reaching down and pulling the covers over Sam's long legs. In a messy, one-handed motion, John tucks the covers around his son's slender waist and sets the contraption down on the covered lap.

"Thanks," Sam says awkwardly, and John merely nods in response before turning and heading for the bathroom door. Dean's been in there for a while and if Sam still has a fever, Dean probably still has a fever. And John doesn't need either of his kids passing out and hitting their heads on hard surfaces. Not now, not ever.

His knock is just heavy enough to be heard over the shower. "Dean?"

No response. John doesn't try knocking again. He just pops open the door. Lucky for him, the lock is broken.

"Dean?" His voice is louder in the bathroom. It plays against the walls and fills the whole space.

The shower turns off. The sound of the plastic rings sliding over the metal shower rod assaults his ears as Dean slides the curtain back. His hair is plastered to his face and his skin is pink. He blinks slowly at John. "Dad? Dude, not to sound like a bitch or anything, but there's this thing called boundaries."

John wonders if his skin is pink from just the hot water or if it's from the fever, too. Probably both. Dean looks like he's having trouble keeping his eyes open and he's leaning with his shoulder against the wall to support himself.

John pulls a towel off the rack and hands it to him, waits for Dean to wrap it around his waist and then he's helping his son out of the shower, lending his own shoulder for Dean to lean on. The kid's legs are trembling and he's radiating heat.

"You're not feeling well, Dean Bean," John says, pulling the nickname out of two-decade old memories, days of Daddy-look-what-I-dids and tomato rice soup and "Hey Jude."

"M'not feeling well," Dean agrees. "Shower prolly should've been colder. M'not puking though, that's...that's something, right?"

"That's something." John deposits his son on the bed. He rummages through Dean's duffel, pulls out a clean set of boxers and a T-shirt that's clean enough that it doesn't smell.

"Dean, you look like Hell," Sam says.

"Thanks, Sammy. You look like a prissy little girl."

"Boys," John says, and they mumble something that might or might not be an apology. They're probably cursing him out under their breaths, but John decides he's okay with that. He's too tired to not to be okay with that and now he's too worried, too. Not to mention that assload of sadness that comes with thoughts of Mary and how sweet her voice was when she used to sing. "Dean...put them on here so you don't collapse. Sam and I will turn around."

Dean shrugs and tugs on his clothes, follows John back to the bed where Sam's spread out, where he allows himself to be tucked in though he regards the action with the same sort of awkwardness and suspicion his little brother held only a few minutes earlier.

"Will you be okay?" John asks, indicating with his eyes that he's talking about the mystery of what's under the bed.

Dean looks like he did when he was four and telling his mother that he was big enough to sleep without the nightlight - when he really wasn't. "Yeah. It's not as bad in the daytime."

John accepts it. He goes back to the bathroom and wets a washcloth with cool water, places it on his son's forehead.

"Wake me up if you need to," he says. "Order a pizza if you get hungry."

"Okay."

John pats him on the shoulder and walks away without another word. He falls into a shallow slumber in the unoccupied bed to the sound of Dean's sleepy fraternal insults and Sam's fingers lightly tapping the keys.


	8. Warm Cookies

**A/N:** Aw, there was a decline in reviews. Do you guys not like the schmoopy schmoop? *worries* Oh, well, I know there were a few of you that do. Which is good, because here's more of it. *hugs for everyone*

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Eight - Warm Cookies_

* * *

"I'll have a small portion of the chef salad, please," Sam says, smiling his polite smile at the waitress. "With turkey. And a cup of your Very Vegetable Soup would be great, thanks."

John feels better. Not great, but better. He has about five hours of restless sleep under his belt and a cup of steaming diner coffee in his hand. He'll be good to go after they eat, and the boys are looking slightly perkier, too. Sam has just the barest hint of a fever now and Dean's getting there, he's functioning, even if his blinks are slower than usual and he's not at all alert.

John tried to leave him in bed, but Dean wouldn't have it. Sam wouldn't have it. And after some thought, John wouldn't have it, either.

"And what can I get for you, sir?" The waitress smiles prettily at John. She's plump and wholesome and middle-aged, her happy hospitality seemingly genuine, and John appreciates her just like he's appreciated hundreds of waitresses over the years. Diners, more often than not, are a safe place where the staff smiles at you and you eat and then you're satisfied.

"I'll have the BLT with a side of chili. Thanks, darlin'," he says, and he keeps his voice even and warm, like honey in hot tea. She reacts to it, like they always do. She giggles and then blushes, looks away in a matter of two seconds, takes up his menu and tries to pretend that it never happened, and John feels...well, John feels nothing, really. He's glad he's still charming, though. Charm can be a strategically important quality to possess.

"And you, baby?" she asks Dean, who's dazed and rubbing a hand over his face. The grin he unleashes in return is sleepy, but charming. "You okay?"

"M'good," Dean says. His menu has been laying in front of him for the past three minutes and just now does he pull it down with a finger and skim it over, deciding quickly. "Uh...I'll have the Double Meat Monster Burger with a side of onion rings."

Dean always eats the worst things.

The waitress scribbles it down quickly, but her eyes float to John. He doesn't know if he made a noise in protest, because he's thinking of Mary again, of how she would be displeased, of how that fruit cup yesterday was a small triumph in a lifetime full of parental failures. Or maybe it's just something she knows, being a waitress, having seen it thousands of times before - parents countermanding their children's food choices.

"Everything okay, hon?" she asks.

So it was the noise. John made a noise. That's fine. John has authority. John can do this.

"Yeah, uh...no onion rings. He'll have a small dinner salad on the side."

Or maybe it's both, because she immediately crosses out the onion rings without looking to Dean for confirmation, though she does ask him, "What kind of dressing would you like, sweetheart?"

Dean's eyes are knives stabbing John into a bleeding mess, but he's not Sam. Dean's never been Sam, and he goes with it without making a scene or arguing on the spot. "Ranch."

Sam's got that smug look about him again as the waitress scribbles the preference down and walks away, his teeth biting down on his lip as he tries not to laugh. Dean elbows him quick and sharp in the gut and mutters, "Shut up."

But then he goes quiet.

No "_who the fuck do you think you are?_" or "_you've gotta be fucking kidding me_", just acquiescence and silent seething.

John did this to him.

John doesn't apologize for it, just watches as Dean crosses his arms on the table and lays his feverish head down on them. John sighs and reaches his hand across the table to skim it over the top of the boy's head. He asks, "How're you feeling, dude?"

"I feel wonderful, Dad," Dean replies testily. "How do you feel?"

"Like maybe I should have left you in bed."

That was unfair. John knows that was unfair. Dean has every right and reason to be irritated right now... it's just John's reactions to such petulant tones are swift and hard to quell.

Dean lifts his shoulders in a sulky shrug.

John lets it go.

Sam doesn't. "We're not children, Dad. Stop treating us like we are."

John's not going to give Sam the satisfaction of another argument. They already had one this morning. One a day seems reasonable. Not two, though. Of course, back in the day, it was no less than three. He says, "We'll see. Maybe when this whole shitty ordeal is over with, I'll let you wear your big boy pants again."

Okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to deter a fight.

The anger springs up, the color in Sam's face rises. He opens his mouth, ready to let John have it, but then Dean snorts.

"Heh. Big boy pants."

Sam's ire is quick to switch directions, whips around until its spitting on his big brother like sparks from a fire. "He just ordered you a _salad_, Dean."

Dean lifts his head from his arms, considers Sam with a fond sort of amusement. "S'okay. He's paying for it." His eyes shift to John. "You do know you're paying for it, right?"

"I'm paying for it," John agrees. He doesn't know if he should be pleased or saddened by the fact that Dean knows how to diffuse the epic Dad vs. Sam battle before it even starts, but he's glad his son knows how to do it.

"Can I have some pie, too?"

John almost tells him he's pushing it, but Dean's eyes are honestly hopeful at the moment so he checks his watch. They can still make it to the festival today. The second round of the Little Miss Peanut Pageant is at eight and if they leave in the next twenty-five minutes, they'll be right on time. Maybe the enthusiast will be there. John hopes so. He has some questions to ask that creepy fuck.

"You can have one slice, but you have to eat it in the car."

"Deal." Dean instantly snatches the dessert menu away from the napkin holder, runs his eyes over it in lust. "Sammy, you want some pie?"

Sam sighs, slouches in his seat. "No, Dean. I don't want any pie."

"They have warm cookies."

"Dude, you're so..." Sam trails off, his eyes catching something on the menu. "Wow. It really does say 'warm cookies'."

"Yep. And look, they have your favorite! Oatmeal raisin."

Sam slides the menu over to his side of the table with a single finger. Dean looks up while his little brother is distracted and smirks at John. He's been pacifying Sam since he was six and Sam was two and John will never cease to be silently amazed.

They eat their dinner when it arrives. Dean chokes down half the salad and all of the burger, looking far more alive when they exit the diner than when they entered it. John drives to the peanut festival in a classic car that's filled with the smells of warm cookies and delicious pastries, and the sounds of the sons who eat them.


	9. Reactionary

**A/N:** Ah, thanks, all, for letting me know that you're still reading. I greatly appreciate it. *hugs*

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Nine - Reactionary_

* * *

The lights are bright and neon against the dark sky and the air smells as putrid as the motel bathroom did this morning - men, women, and children have been upchucking their cotton candy and funnel cakes, John supposes, considering the splatters on paths of trodden-down grass leading from some tumultuous ride or another. Sam and Dean crinkle their noses and start to look sick again. John doesn't want to see any regurgitated pie or cookies any time soon, though, so he grabs them by the backs of their jackets and leads them away.

"I hate carnivals," Sam mutters, wriggling in his father's hold.

"Me, too," John grunts.

"I like the food," Dean says, and his eyes light up when he sees a tent manned by a pretty, young brunette. "Speaking of which, I think I'm gonna go hit up that hot carnie for some cotton candy-"

"Dean." John yanks his eldest back when the kid attempts to make for the sweets and the sex. "You just had pie. And we're on a job."

"Fine. But after the creepy kid show?"

"No."

"You can do what you want, Dean," Sam interjects, finally manage to shirk John's grip. "You're twenty-seven. You don't need his permission to have cotton candy or intercourse."

"Intercourse? Really?"

"Out of everything I just said, that's seriously what you're holding on to?"

Dean engages in a short series of gentle tugs of resistance until John finally releases him. He eyes his younger brother peevishly. "Why's it always gotta be a fight with you, man?"

John groans internally. This isn't going to progress well.

Sam rolls his eyes. "I'm sorry that I'm a human being and refuse to respond to anyone with a dog-like obedience-"

"Go fuck yourself, Sammy."

"_Hey_." They don't have time for this. According to John's watch, the pageant's already started, and the last thing he needs is for these two to be scared _and_ at odds. "Sam, show your brother some fucking respect. Dean, watch your mouth."

Dean blinks. "Watch my mouth?"

"You heard me."

Sam sucks in an agitated breath. "You're such a hypocritical sunuva-_ow_."

Sam stops in his tracks. Dean stops with him. John stops because they stop, regards them with an irritated expression. He's waving his hand in the air because it stings and the boys are looking at him like he's lost his mind, or that he's suddenly an incredibly dangerous monster, and he's not sure why or what just happened and he asks, "What?"

"I..." Sam trails off, shock apparent. He reaches his hand behind him, only to bring it forward again, all twitchy like he wants to do something but can't let himself. "I..."

"Dude, are you okay?" Dean looks at his brother in concern, puts a hand on Sam's shoulder and gives it a squeeze. "S'okay, Sammy."

"I..."

"I won't let it happen again," Dean assures him, and then looks sharply at John. "Jesus fucking Christ, Dad. There's this thing called progressive parenting. Look into it."

John blinks at him. He honestly has no idea what he just did, but he looks at his stinging hand and back at Sam, notices the way Sam's own hand is behind him again, rubbing his backside like he's just been-

Oh shit.

"Fuck, Sam, I'm-"

"Are you going senile?" Sam demands, jerking his hand back to his front again. "Because if you're going senile, we're going to need our weapons back and yours, too."

"No, Sammy, I just...I reacted-"

"I want my gun and my knives-"

"I didn't even realize...I can't, son, you're still affected. Can we just...let's just...can we go? Can we get this over with?"

Sam clenches his hands into fists, and from what John can see in the glow of the fair lights, his face is red, with anger or embarrassment or both. "I'm not _five_."

John knows that. "I know that. I'm-"

"I'm calling CPS."

"You just said you weren't five."

"M'callin' them, anyway," Sam sniffs, jerking away when Dean grabs his arm. "Don't touch me, Dean."

"Hey, _I _didn't hit you."

Okay, this is ridiculous. John's had enough. He lost himself for a minute and slipped up and yeah, it was a bad slip, but they can't just stand around here all night in this awkward family mess while he has a job to do and two boys to get better. And it wasn't _hitting_. "I didn't _hit_ your brother, Dean."

Deja vu. John feels it.

And this is fucking ridiculous.

He sighs. "Sam, you'll be fine. It was just a little smack on the ass-"

"A little _psychologically damaging_ smack on the ass, are the words I think you're looking for."

John grits his teeth and pinches the bridge of his nose. Those, in fact, _weren't_ the words he was looking for, but if that's what Sam feels, fine. John gave him a little psychologically damaging smack on the ass and now they have to move past it and move on. "Fine. If that's what you feel. But now I've had enough of this shit and we're going. So come on."

He starts walking. They don't follow him.

He stops.

When he turns around, he finds two sets of green eyes staring at him with that same wholehearted, but absurd terror John's been seeing since they arrived in this godforsaken town two nights ago.

Holy fuck, he's the monster under the bed.

"Boys..."

Dean clears his throat uncomfortably. "Uh, Dad, in light of you going all spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child on Sam, I think, um...I think we'll wait in the car while you solve this." The boys are moving in sync as they take a few steps back. "Is, um...is that okay?"

He just bought them pie and cookies, for chrissakes. And there was no rod.

"There was no- christ, nevermind." John bites his lip, takes a breath, and calms himself. "You know what? Fine. If waiting in the car feels safer to you, you wait in the car." He pulls the keys out of his pocket and takes a step towards them, hand outstretched. They skitter back and away.

"Could you..." Some hint of apology is shining through Dean's fearful gaze. "Dad, I'm sorry, could you just throw them?"

It's worse than he thought. And he's trying not to take it too much to heart. It's just...it's the curse. It's the fucking peanuts...

Some of it's just the fucking peanuts. Some of its him.

Because monsters under the bed? Dean sleeps with a knife under his pillow. Dean's always been wary of such things that may or may not be imaginary. And this curse is just causing him to react differently. John Winchester is a scary dude. Even his sons think so.

He tosses them the keys.

"I'm sorry," he says, but they're already walking away, walking closer than usual, so that their limbs are brushing together with each stride, taking what little comfort they can in the fact that they're brothers and they have each other. That it's always been them.

Mary would hate him so fucking much right now.

That's fine. Or it's not. It could be anything, but John's head is everywhere and he needs to focus on just the one thing, he needs to focus on making this better, and when they're not scared of him anymore, his sons...he'll make sure they look at him differently. He'll buy them pie and cookies and make sure Dean doesn't die from a heart attack by 30 and Sam won't hate him, anymore. John will make sure of this. He'll get rid of the curse and he'll kill the demon and they'll all start over.

Little girls in frilly dresses and adult-amounts of make-up giggle as they run by his legs, towards the three foot tall stage at the front of the gigantic tent.

The Little Miss Peanut Pageant is underway and John has arrived.


	10. Innocence

**Under the Bed**  
by Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Ten - Innocence_

* * *

Batons are flying left and right, and there are some voices singing that would be better left unheard. John feels like a creep just standing here, amidst mothers silently coaching their 6-year-old daughters, who are smiling in a very false and cold way as they shimmy across the stage, their hands waving like robots who have been programmed to be graceful.

"This is fucked," John mutters, as one little girl with blonde curls and lips painted in vixen red flutters about in a miniature version of something he once saw on a stripper built like a thoroughbred.

Maybe CPS _should_ be called, but not because John gave his six-foot-four twenty-two-year-old a love pat.

Not that he doesn't regret that, because he does. He's still trying to shake the memory of the look in their eyes out of his head as he skims the crowd for the unsettling man with the peanut brittle. He'll be here, John knows, what with all this exploited innocence running around. That's what this guy likes, obviously. It's not about size or age or experience, it's about innocence. It's the only explanation for why he likes baby pageant princesses _and _grown boys cursed to cling to their father's side.

"Do you have a daughter in the pageant?" The redhead standing next to him has eyelashes as fake as her daughter's. _If she has a daughter_, John amends, because he doesn't really know if she does or not, he just knows that if she does and if said daughter is present in this pageant, then she is undoubtedly sporting some false eyelashes.

Because they all are. They all are and John wants to call CPS.

"I don't," he says, and immediately realizes how creepy it is for him to be standing here watching these over-sexualized children scampering around in sequins and spray tans. She has blue eyes and they're starting to register this, but John is used to such awkward situations, doing what he does, and he's quick to say. "I'm looking for someone. A man. He's..."

John doesn't remember what he looks like. All he remembers is a demented smile and peanut brittle. And itinerary.

"He was passing out brochures yesterday at the front of the fair. Have you seen him?"

"Mr. Cummings?"

John has no idea, but the name may be fitting. "Maybe?"

She points a long acrylic nail in the direction of the stage, and John doesn't know how he missed him, this man with his camera and his smile, standing directly next to it, beaming at these wee little things with horrible parents. Not that John's anywhere close to being a _good_ parent, but at least he didn't make his children do the Winchester version of the dance, monkey, dance routine in public. On the contrary, he kept them as far away from any kind of eye as possible. Out of sight, out of mind. No CPS.

Sometimes he still wonders in that haze of nightmares and booze, if he left them hungry. He wonders if that's why Dean always eats like he's starving.

And then he stops wondering. He stops wondering because he can't wonder, if he wonders too much he won't be able to function anymore, and if he can't function anymore, everything up to this point will have been a waste. And there's a creepy asshole at the front of this tent who may or may not be a monster, who may or may not be responsible for his _sons'_ inability to function, and John...John has to see to that. To see to this.

"Thanks," he tells the redhead brusquely, and makes his way towards this man he's met on two separate occasions, neither of which gave John a remotely pleasant feeling. This is something he should have done last time - and he would have done, had he not been engrossed in his attempts to be a decent father.

His life and his responsibilities have always been so win-lose.

"Mr. Cummings," John's voice is smooth as silk as he sidles up behind this oddity. "May I have a word?"

Cummings turns around, his smile growing wider when he sees John. It's now that John actually gives him a look, a real look, notices the wrinkles and the grey hair, the face so thin that it's like skin plastered to bone, and the fact that he's actually older than John himself - not that John's _that_ old, mind you, and he's certainly not going senile, thank you very much.

"I'm afraid I'm rather busy at the moment, sir."

"Taking pictures," John says indicating the camera in Cummings' hand with a nod of his head.

"I am taking pictures, yes," Cummings agrees.

"Of little girls." John's voice is deadpan.

"They are girls and they are little." Cummings turns his back on John, as if he's not worth the respect of eye contact. "My daughter is in this pageant. She's a pretty little thing like the rest of them."

"Your...daughter." All of these girls are between three and eight, and John doesn't want to know how a man as old as this managed to reproduce at such an age. "Which one is she?"

"She's not coming out until the very end. She's still getting ready. Takes a long time, I'm sure you understand. Such is the way of women."

"I'd still like a word," John says, because he doesn't know how he's going to drag this guy out of here without anyone noticing. "If you have the time, which I think you do if your daughter's not coming out until the very end."

Cummings turns back around, his smile still in place. "Don't you have your own pretty little things to look after, John?"

John _is_ well known in this world, this world that isn't _this_ world, but the other world. The one that nobody knows about that thrives in the same one they live in because they're too busy living to notice every evil little thing that John exists to save them from on a daily basis. Every evil little thing that knows John's name.

John was always a good soldier, always able to walk quietly enough that the enemy didn't hear him coming, the grass didn't even crunch, and now the patrons of the tent are too distracted by glittery children to notice him heave Cummings out by the collar of his shirt, into the crisp night air and the shadows that will shroud him from any eyes that might see the blood.

And there will be blood.

"What did you do to my kids?" John slams the man, or whatever he is, against a thick tree. Cummings hits it like a lifeless sack, even winces, but his smile is still in place.

"I didn't do anything to your kids, Winchester. Nothing that they didn't want done, anyway."

"What _are_ you?" John presses his thumb into a bobbing Adam's apple, listens to the man choke. And somehow his lips are twitching upwards, this creepy bastard and his creepy smile.

"I'm a very old man, John," he rasps against the hold. "A very old man with a very young wife and very young daughter."

"What's in the fucking peanuts?"

John can feel the vibration of a laugh against his hand. He lets up on the pressure enough to hear the next words. "Nothing. There's nothing in the peanuts. What a silly and unintentionally hilarious question for you to ask."

"They have _marks-"_

"It seemed appropriate given the festivities!"

"What did you _do-"_

"You, you, you. Blaming me. Always blaming someone other than yourself. How could I _not_, John? They're so big. They're so big and they have all this sweet, sweet innocence locked up in their little hearts. They miss their mommy. They miss their daddy. They miss everything they never had and now they're just sad little boys pretending to be big, big men, killing the monsters they were never allowed to be afraid of."

Sense. This thing makes sense. And everything about the past two days is crushing John all that farther into the ground. "What's your end game?"

"Now, John, why would I tell you something like that?"

"Because I'm gonna kill you."

"You're going to kill me, anyway."

It's not fighting. Not writhing, not kicking, not even twitching. Just waiting. "And you're just going to let me."

"I'm weak. I haven't fed."

"My boys?"

"Their hearts. Now we don't have all day and clearly I've lost. Get on with it. They'll be free when I'm dead."

Lying. He's lying. Is he lying? John can't tell if he's lying, but he's certainly not going to tell him anything, not if he's willing to just die so passively. John will figure it out if the boys are still affected, he'll make some calls. Singer...Singer will put aside all the bad blood for Sam and Dean. He will, John knows he will. They'll get the boys better.

He tells himself this as he pulls a large blade out of his jacket, as he drags it across Cummings' throat, blood that is more purple than red cascading down the neck so pale that it is nearly translucent and then John rams it in, all straight and horizontal, the spine like a speed bump on the way to victory.

The head is heavy and it slips slow and sick down the knife, tumbling to the grass, the body collapsing in a limp, bloody mess to the ground.

And John gets the fuck out of there. It's amazing that no one saw him, really. But he is good, the best, and that's why these things know his name. Or they know_ him_. Personally. This is about him. This is about something he did and that thing knew him and...it probably wasn't coincidence that they stopped in this town. John sincerely doubts that.

He stuffs the knife back in his jacket. The blood dampens his shirt and he just wants to go back to the motel, wants to take a shower, and then...he'll make it up to his sons. He'll make sure they're safe, that they know they're safe, that he's going to fix it and they don't have to be afraid of him. They don't have to be afraid of their dad anymore.

It seems to take a long time to get to the parking lot, even longer to find the Impala, but there she is, just as beautiful as the day he bought her, if not more so. John's pretty sure no car has ever been loved so well.

He gets to her in a few long strides, eager to see his boys, to see if they're better, if they can look at him without fear in their eyes, yet.

But the car is empty.

He scans the area, turning in a slow circle, but they're not there. They're not there at all. His hands are starting to sweat, his heart is beating fast, and this is how he knows they're his weak spot. His cell phone slips in his perspiring palms, his fingers clumsy against the buttons.

He calls Sam first.

Sam's cell phone rings. John can hear it through the earpiece, and the tinkling sound of the ringtone from the grassy earth, by his feet, the backlight glowing in the dark. _Dad_, it says.

John bends down and picks his lost son's lost cell phone up.

He tries Dean, but Dean must not have lost his. It keeps ringing, and John can't hear the phone anywhere.

He should have been more sympathetic these past two days. It's been years and years of the same old fight - he thought he'd become desensitized. But now, as he dashes back into the fairgrounds, he remembers.

He remembers what real fear feels like.


	11. Sparkly Tiaras

**A/N:** Only one more chapter left, I'm afraid. Can't really stretch this out anymore. If you guys want a sequel, I might try to think up something.

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Eleven - Sparkly Tiaras_

* * *

_Employees Only_. _No Trespassing_. _Beware of Dog_. It's always some kind of sign hung to fend off intruders who might take something that's not theirs. Or see something that's not theirs to see. John always looks for these signs, and he never heeds them because they often hold the cause and/or solution to the problem at hand.

He keeps a frenetic pace through the fair, looking for these signs, bumping into people left and right, his big, booted feet stomping discarded popcorn and paper food containers into the ground. The carnival music is jaunty and disturbing and loud and it's fucking with John's already thoroughly fucked-with head, makes him feel like he's on drugs, waiting to come down from a high. Not that John knows what that...okay, yeah. Yeah, he does. He knows what that feels like. He was a teenager through some portion of the 70s, you know. Can't expect a man just to discard the times in which he lives for the sake of being some kind of epitome of morality, which John has never been, not even when he went to war, not even in '79 when Dean was...

His heart jolts when he remembers his wife on the table, her feet in the stirrups, his son coming tumbling out into the world in a gooey, screaming mess.

He remembers how he held Mary's hand and told her how good she did while a nurse cleaned their baby, how Mary, exhausted and perspiring, told him to fuck off, how Dean was soft and beautiful and looked like a little alien. John remembers holding him, cooing, calling himself Daddy, promising to be the best daddy in the whole world, because there he was. There he was with life in his hands, his and Dean's - and in that moment, with the echoes of shot-down brothers dying in war-trodden grass ringing in his head, he promised he'd never let this one go.

And then Sam came along, and he did it again.

They're gone, though. They're gone right now, and this is the reason he kept them locked up so tight when they were little, told them not to answer the door, and when they did...sometimes he came down hard, he admits it, but there are strange people and strange things in this world and John knows about all of them. And he's never there with them now, even though he should be, while they're hunting and hurting and dreaming terrible dreams. He's not there to save them, or to feel that life bleeding out of his hands.

John isn't the best daddy in the whole world. John isn't a lot of things.

That doesn't mean that he's not a huge fucking wreck right now, opening the doors of random buildings on the fairgrounds, redialing Dean over and over again, his head whirling far faster than that stupid fucking ferris wheel and there are little girls again, little girls running, giggling, past his legs who are wearing far too much make-up. He's back where he started. He's back at the Little Miss Peanut Pageant and the corpse he left can't be that far off, people probably saw him leave with the bastard, they'll know, and he can't find his kids, and he's calling Dean and calling Dean and calling Dean...

And that's Metallica. It's low and it's muffled and he can barely hear it, but he hears it. He hears Metallica. Dean's ringtone. He's not making this up, he swears it, and he follows the sound, sick with a parent's worry, his heart drumming like a maniac against his ribs.

His eldest's cell phone is in the grass by a tent pole and John picks it up. The backlight is a soft glow amidst the audacious effulgence of the fair. _Dad_, it says. It's singing and vibrating in his hand and it's slick with something. It's slick with blood.

"_Fuck_."

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

But it's here. If it's here, then maybe they're here. They're somewhere around here. Cummings, whatever the fuck he was, wasn't the only one...

_She's not coming out until the very end. She's still getting ready._

_I'm a very old man with a very young wife and very young daughter._

John needs to learn to listen. John needs to learn patience. He kills too soon, sometimes. He just wanted it to be over, wanted to see the blood, wanted it all back to the way it was.

_Still getting ready_. The pageant participants must get ready somewhere close by, lest their dresses tear or their makeup smudges or one of their mothers suddenly experiences a crisis of conscience.

But they wouldn't be there. Not all of these kids are evil sons of bitches, not even all of their parents, and John scans the area, his eyes roaming over game tents and competition tents and tents with no discernible purpose, willing them to see something and it's only when he looks away from the fair, into the wooded thicket in the distance, that he succeeds.

There's the tiniest of glows in the trees, could be a flashlight or even a candle flame, or even a figment of John's imagination. There are a lot of things in John's life that could be a figment of his imagination, but he doesn't dismiss them. He kills them. Just like he's going to kill whoever took Sam and Dean.

So he goes into the woods, and it's dark, and there is no glow, but he keeps on keeping on, just like he always does, battling the branches that scrape his skin and the spider webs that insist on hanging from them. He must be in there for at least five minutes, losing hope with every passing moment, and then he steps on it.

Wood, not earth. Under his feet. A door.

There's a fucking cellar in the woods.

John steps off of it quickly and kneels into the grass, pries it open with rough hands trying to be delicate, trying to be quiet. Warm, yellow light shoots up from the hole in the ground, bringing voices along with it.

"It's almost _over_, Mother!" The voice is that of a very young girl. Six, maybe seven years old. "I'll never win if I don't even show up!"

"Hush, Regina. They're not ready, yet and you know your father likes you to show up looking youthful and fresh-faced, so don't complain. Besides, you're thirty-two years old. You should be able to handle the wait with some grace at this point."

John hears the sound of a small foot stomping on a concrete floor. "Well, why _aren't_ they ready, yet? They're scared, I can tell."

"Not scared enough. They're big boys." There's a pause, and then the woman's voice goes low and sultry and not at all to John's liking, "Aren't you a big boy?"

A little huff. "I'm gonna tell Daddy you're cheating on him with the food. _Again_."

Shit. She's...well, she's gonna cut their hearts out and that's reason to kill her in itself, but the last thing John needs is for some monster to be touching his boys in a way only partners of their choosing should touch them. He pulls his blade out of his jacket again.

"Oh, sweetheart. You've lived so long but you still don't know what it feels like to be a woman."

"And _you_ don't know what it feels like to have over two thousand sparkly tiaras, but you don't see _me _rubbing it in."

Okay, John's heard enough. There's a staircase and he touches down softly on the first step, then the second, then the third, stopping when they pause in their discussion, sneaking along when they resume their arguments. Ever the hunter is John Winchester.

They're close by when he reaches the ground floor, but he's able to hide behind the stairwell wall, and he does, sneaking peeks past it to see his sons shirtless and restrained on two surgical tables covered in princess pink sheets, wriggling in their ropes, their mouths gagged. Their heads are resting on decorative pillows - pink polka dots and purple floral, and John has to remember to try not to snap if they tease each other about it later.

Later, when they're still alive, of course, because John's going to get them out of this.

He can't see the woman or the child.

He stands there for a few more moments before he hears one of his boys' muffled screams. He doesn't know if it's Sam or Dean, but he knows its time to get moving when the girl says, "Mother, I think this one's ready."

"Which one?"

"The one with the pretty hair."

Sammy. That's all John needs to hear, to think, before he goes charging out there, a knife in one hand, a gun in the other and he's half-startled to see a perfectly normal-looking suburban mom-type and a little girl standing over his youngest with a scalpel.

Women and children. His finger freezes on the trigger.

Their heads whipped in his direction as soon as he came out, and now they're smiling, smirking, and the mom says, "Look, boys, your daddy's come to play." And with those words, she cuts into John's screaming son.

And John shoots her in the head.

The body collapses, the scalpel clatters to the floor. The little girl, Regina, stares at the body of her dead mother, at the blood pooling from the skull.

"That was really easy for you," she says to John in a soft voice, her eyes not leaving the corpse.

"I'm..." John's not sorry. But the girl's little. She's little and he just killed her mother.

He shakes his head. She isn't a she. She's an it. She's a monster. She's thirty-two years old and a monster.

He tries to tell himself this, wills himself to pull the trigger again, and even though it's only a few seconds, the wait is too long. The woman's body starts twitching and then she gets up and the bullet works its own way out, falls to the floor next to the scalpel.

"Took you long enough," Regina mutters, but her mother pays her no mind. She's too busy smiling proudly at John.

"I've eaten about five million hearts in my day," she brags.

Regina makes a noise of frustration and stomps her foot. "That's a gross exaggeration. Stop _grossly exaggerating_."

"Well, _you_ don't have over two thousand tiaras."

"I do so! I counted them just the other day. Two thousand and twenty-six, thank you very much. I'm a national champion fifty times over."

"Regina, you haven't been _alive_ long enough for that to be true."

"And you haven't been alive long enough to consume five million hearts! You're only ninety-five, _Mother_. If that is your real name."

And their argument continues, much to John's bewilderment.

Sam and Dean fight against their restraints. John can see their eyes, he can see that it's not just their mouths that are screaming.

"S'okay, boys," he says. "I'm here. I've got this."

And he raises his blade, only to have two heads turn in his direction, one fun-sized, one adult, and they don't have human faces anymore. Their faces are all grey skin and holes, no eyes, no mouth, no nose, but the little one still has her wig in place and the mother has her hair and they're moving so fucking fast towards John. The tables screech across the floor as the boys fight harder and John't thinking _oh, fuck_.

But he's been doing this shit for well over twenty years, this killing shit, human and otherwise, whether he should or not. And it's okay. His boys are okay because he's here and he's got this.

He gets slammed into a wall. A few times, actually. But his weapon-work has always been on point and he stabs and slices and there are limbs on the floor and blood on John's clothes, his face, his hands. John wins. If monster-killing were a beauty pageant, John, too, would have two thousand and twenty-six sparkly tiaras.

When all is said and done, he get ups and kicks a child-shaped head against the wall.

And then he cuts the ropes pinning his sons to the tables. They smell like sweat and sickly sweet perfume. He immediately turns them around and checks their backs to find that the marks are gone.

"Dad?" Dean croaks, and he's still trembling, just like his little brother. It's over, John's certain. The curse is over, and this is just...this is just the aftermath, the trauma, and John will stay for it. John will take them back to the motel and get them in bed. And then he'll pack their fucking bags so they can leave as soon as they wake up.

"I'm right here," he tells his sons. Sam reaches out and grabs one of his arms, looks like he wants a hug. That's fine. John will give it to him, he will. He'll hug the kid as much as he needs...but the boy just squeezes the appendage and pulls back awkwardly.

"Thanks," Sam mumbles.

The boys both stand there for a few seconds, breathing heavily, closing their eyes and trying to forget the fear that was so rampant in their veins just a few minutes ago.

It's too quiet.

"I'm sorry about earlier," John tells them, because the room needs more than awkward silence and hacked-up bodies. "I shouldn't have-"

"It's okay, Dad," Dean interrupts him. "Sometimes Sam requires a firm hand."

"_Hey_," Sam protests.

The smile is slow, but it takes form on Dean's face and he says, "Sammy got a _spanking_."

And Sam goes red and huffs in that Sam way of his, shoves his brother with one, irritated hand. Dean skids in the blood on the floor, lifts his foot and crinkles his nose in disgust.

"Gross."

"Boys," John says.

"Dad, Sam pushed me in the gore."

John doesn't care. He can't find their shirts, though, and he's desperate to get out of this hellhole, so he places his hands on their backs and pushes them up the stairs, tries to keep them on the outskirts of the fair on the way back to the Impala. He doesn't need for people to think his kids were raised in a barn. And he doesn't need them to see the fact that he, himself, is covered from head to toe in monster blood.

They make it.

The boys still haven't completely pulled themselves together, though, and they stand there and blink while John opens their doors.

"Come on," he grunts. "Lets get the hell out of here."

Their response is to suffocate him. Or not really, but that's sure what it feels like when his two twenty-somethings decide they need to cling like their lives depend on it, their bodies shaking with the remnants of bad magic. He manages to get his arms at least a little bit around both of them, to rub coarse palms up and down their shoulder blades until they man up and clear their throats and get in the car. It was nice for that moment, though. For that moment, he felt like a decent father.

He drives. They press their heads against the windows and close their eyes, trusting him to get them to their next destination. Just like they used to when they were small.

_Sad_ _little boys pretending to be big, big men_.

The words ring in John's ears all the way back to the motel, and try as he might, he can't get them to leave.

* * *

**TBC**

Thanks again for all the encouragement!


	12. Easy

**A/N: **Well, here's the end. Thank you so very much for reading and all the nice comments! I'm glad you liked/hope you liked the story.

**Under the Bed**  
by  
Deanie McQueen

_Chapter Twelve - Easy_

* * *

The morning comes with a storm. Rain pelts against the motel window, thunder booms, lightning crashes and John wakes the hell up in a room that is still dark and filled with sleep. Dean's snoozing away on the floor between the beds, an act he claimed he felt necessary given this curse was a "discredit to his masculinity" - though, John sees his head lift after one particularly loud round of thunder, his hair rumpled and his eyes bleary, and he remembers when the kid was three, remembers how the thunder used to be "the scary noise," how Dean would climb between his mother and his father and not move throughout the night, or even in the morning because it was safe there. Safe and warm.

"You okay?" John asks him now, and he sees a ringed hand come up to scrub at a tired eye.

"M'cool, Da'," Dean mumbles, and he lays back down, turns on his side with his back to John. Maybe he goes to sleep, maybe he doesn't, but John's being ignored now. He expects it to last throughout the day, honestly, the boys not meeting his eyes, skirting by him whenever they walk. They're big, big men, after all, and they don't need him close by in order to feel safe. Not anymore.

John lays in bed for he doesn't know how long and listens to the sounds of the storm. The other bed creaks as Sam moves about on it, sprawling across it, immersing himself in the pillows. At one point his arm dangles over the side, in that space where Dean has taken residence, and John sees it swinging in an odd fashion and thinks that his son must be having a very weird dream.

That is, until he realizes that Dean is actually awake and reaching over, poking his baby brother's open palm with one finger in order to amuse himself. John doesn't say anything, watches as the taps get harder, and the long arm swings farther, and Sam, who must have been in a very deep sleep, suddenly sucks in a loud breath. His eyes fly open and he grabs Dean's finger on instinct, pulls.

"_Shit_, Sam."

"Well, stop it, then," Sam says in a voice roughened from sleep, and he drops Dean's finger.

"Your gargantuan hand was in my space, Sleeping Beauty."

"Well, find a new space."

"_You_ find a new space."

"No."

And that's the end of the argument. Maybe they go back to sleep, maybe they don't, but the storm is still raging on when they all get up an hour and a half later, as the boys shuffle in and out of the bathroom, as they stand side by side in front of the mirror and brush their teeth like they used to when they were ten and six and John was bleeding and hungover.

They still do this, he realizes. They probably do this all the time, taking comfort in what they know. Taking comfort in each other, because it's always been them and just them, even when John was there. And he's here now, but it's still just them.

He took care of them sometimes, sure, but John isn't the guy they run to or rely on. That was just on occasion. That was just the past two days.

Too little, too late.

They carry their bags out to their respective vehicles together, the boys dumping theirs in the Impala, John's in his truck. Separate. Because this is the way he made it. It's been like this for years, but the sadness is crushing for a brief moment, a moment that John hides behind his open door, situating his duffel on the passenger side of the truck bench.

Mary would have held on to them, would have shielded them from all of this. Affection would be easy for her, not reserved for desperate situations and heartache, not ended so abruptly after it started. John wishes he was still the father he was when she was alive, not this. Not this gruff asshole who barks orders at his kids, who puts them in harm's way every single day.

"Dad?" Sam's behind him, interrupting his thoughts. John is grateful, but he takes a few beats to swallow it all down.

"Yeah?"

"Mind if Dean and I stop off and get some brunch?"

The boys should eat. John should get back to finding the demon. These are things that they should do. "That's fine, Sam."

Sam shifts on his feet, bites his lip. "You comin' with us? You should eat, too."

"I should-"

"You should come with us. You're the only one that can stop Dean from clogging his arteries."

Sam really wants his father's company. The curse must not have been broken because this is fucking bizarre. "Are you feeling okay?"

Sam's eyes narrow. "I'm _fine_. It's over. And if you don't want to, you don't have to. It's not like I don't know where your priorities lie. Just thought I'd ask."

He stomps away in a huff. John watches him go, feeling only half-irritated by the tone of voice. He, too, knows where his priorities lie.

The demon.

John has to kill the demon. For his sons. To keep Sam's life safe in his hands, to make sure Dean has his brother, to keep what they have, however little and delicate, from being ripped apart.

John wishes they knew why, but he won't tell them. They'll lose themselves in that bit of information. He'll only tell them what they need to know, when they need to know it. He'll keep them safe the only way he knows how.

That doesn't mean he can't go for some brunch, though, which he does when they stop off in the next town and find a decent diner. He watches his sons peruse the menu and asks the waitress to make sure there are no peanut products in their food - his kids are allergic, or whatever the natural term is for the need to steer clear of certain substances tainted by poison or bad experiences.

"Peanuts are whores," Dean agrees when she's gone.

Sam smacks his brother in the arm with the back of his hand, but his lips twitch in amusement.

They eat their brunch. John pays, tips the waitress, and in a display of rare, easy affection, he ruffles his sons' hair on the way out the door.

* * *

_Fin._


End file.
